Section: 1 Basics

The term 'Goth' was used by Ian Astbury who described Andi Sex
Gang as a 'gothic pixie' and popularised by the UK music
magazines New Musical Express and Sounds (NME) and was used to
describe a class of music. For some people that music became
the basis for a 'way of life'. They brought their own
backgrounds and interests along and a sub-culture was formed
and it took for itself the name Gothic.

NME and Sounds reputedly took the term Gothic from Siouxsie
Sioux (of the Banshees) who used it to describe the new
direction for her band. However the earliest significant usage
of the term (as applied to music) was by Anthony H. Wilson who
was overcome by a rare moment of lucidity on a 1978 BBC TV
program when he described Joy Division as Gothic compared with
the pop mainstream. Perhaps Joy Division (who he was managing)
are not what we now think of as Goth but it is possible that
they are at the source of the term. Bauhaus were labelled as
Gothic as early as 1979 when they released Bela Lugosi's Dead.

The pop journalists were quick to latch onto the term and they
applied it in a nasty sort of pigeonholing way to a number of
bands that were around in the early 80s - most of which did
not sound much like the Banshees (or anyone else for that
matter), the journalists were more concerned with looks. The
(Southern Death) Cult was foremost amongst these bands, like
the Banshees they wore lots of black and silver and had
extreme black hair. The Sisters of Mercy were also so labelled
and when they split and Wayne Hussey founded the Mission they
carried their label with them, despite being different
musically. Finally The Fields of the Nephilim appeared and
they (perhaps) consciously and deliberately got themselves
labelled as Gothic despite looking and sounding quite
different to what had previously been labelled Goth.

The fans of bands like the Sisters, Bauhaus and Siouxsie liked
to dress up in lots of black. The music they liked was
something of a backlash against the colourful disco music of
the seventies. The Banshees were a punk band before they
mellowed and punk was brathing its last as Gothdom gathered
speed, and the so one could claim Gothdom grew out of
punk. The music of Joy Division, the Sisters and Bauhaus was
angst ridden but all the hatred was turned inwards and the
music was typified by introspective lyrics. Many of the new
Goth followers were introspective too. Some were a bit
confused by the label and started to think that the label Goth
was in some way connected with the Victorian Gothic revival
and Gothic horror and because enough of them thought that
eventually it became true.

NME and Sounds were not oblivious to this and produced many
hilarious articles poking fun at the Goths amongst their
readers. They said that being Goth was about sitting around in
circles on the floor of pubs (bars) smoking a lot and talking
about being a bat. Some readers of this list get angry at
this. Luckily most Goths have a good enough sense of humour to
laugh at themselves once in a while. The first generation
Goths complain that second and third generation Goths often
seem to think that Gothdom is about wearing the blackest
black, with a lot of silver jewellery and looking as thin and
pale as possible. In common with their older bretheren they
avoid the crass comercialism of mainstream rock and gather
together to share their woes :-) They read Bram Stoker and
Anne Rice and talk about being vampires. They read
H.P. Lovecraft and talk about the end of the world.

The sounds that were described as Gothic were appearing in
other countries besides the UK in the late seventies, but I
have yet to see any evidence that they were using the
word. (If you have any...) Currently Germany is the
bastion of Goth, where they are called Grufties. If German
people are doing a write up on the Goth scene there, please
send me a copy. So that's how we got where we are today. Today
Goth is about music, literature, art and about clothes.

Gothdom embraces all religions, all denominations and all
races. Many Goths are atheists and a sizable minority are new
age spiritualists, Wiccans and members of other alternative
religious groups. There are Christian
Goths. Basically Goth is not about religion, but with the
imagery of religion. May goths wear crosses or ankhs, and
there are many religious references in goth songs, but it is
not a religious movement.

Goth uses religous imagery in some songs. Christian Death are
big on this. Bauhaus did a couple of tracks with religious
imagery. The Sisters have a quasi-religious name but this is
ironic, their music shows that religion is not Andrew
Eldritch's main concern - he prefers politics. The Mission
(UK) were fairly 'new age'. Carl McCoy favoured shamanistic
traditions and gnostic revelation. Religious jewellery is
often worn, particularly crucifixes and ankhs. These are
strong symbols with powerful subconscious effects. Sometimes
they are worn as an satirical statement, sometimes not. For
some it is just fashion.

* Southern Death Cult (SDC) later split in all directions. Only
SDC are condsidered properly Gothic. However many of Southern
Death Cult's Goth followers remained true even when they
entered their 'The Cult' glam metal phase.

** Fields of the Nephilim were so unlike previous Goth it is
amazing that they were ever considered Goth at
all. Nonetheless they are one of the definitive Goth bands
and most Goths took to them instantly because of their
originality and talent.

The word 'Goth' does indeed refer to a tribe of the
indo-european kind. The Goths slowly integrated into the
melting pot of Europe and basically disappeared.

The word 'gothic' is first found in common usage in 1611,
referring mainly to an 'uncivilized lack of taste or
education'. The people who built in the 'gothic' style would
have never used this term. These people were monks or artisans
who worked for the church to build a land of Cathedrals from
the 11th century on. They also built castles and other
edifices. The 16th century saw a large amount of turmoil with
the reform and all. This opened up the architecture field
quite a bit. This new wave of artists looked back on what they
saw as a bland repetitive style of architecture as
'gothic'. Unfortunatly, because of the shallowness of the
learned men at that time, it stuck. It was also referred to as
Ogive - or the characteristic arch of this style - this word
is usually used by most politically correct historians.

The fact is: Ogive architecture today is extremely inspiring
and beautiful. The nameless men who designed and built these
works of grandor were very talented and inspired. One merely
has to look at the Cathedral of Chartres, Paris, Amiens,
Canterbury or any of the other edifices of this age to realize
irony of using 'gothic'. In fact, to augment the irony, the
popular opinion today is that much of the baroque architecture
of the 17th and 18th centuries is gaudy and flamboyant.

ftp.maths.tcd.ie:/pub/music/gothic.
This
site is maintained by Nascent Virion
<mcdonghj@unix2.tcd.ie>, who will be graduating and
leaving the net in June. A mirror site at goth-ftp.acc.brad.ac.uk
(143.53.1.4) has been set up to contain all the info at ftp.maths.tcd.ie:/pub/music,
as well as a number of other goth resources, including various
gothic lyrics, discographies, faqs, images, and Corey's Goth
List, etc can be found. Get the README and INDEX files from
the pub/music directory for the full contents of the music
area, which included guitar tabs, and other music
resources. When you FTP use 'anonymous' as the username and
your email address as the password. If you don't have FTP
access mail to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com.

There is also another gothic archive site in the United States
by Peter Stone (bat@cyberden.com) at cyberden.com. It contains
much of the original gothic archive site as of 12/93, as well
as other new material.

Its available via anonymous FTP at ftp.maths.tcd.ie
in /pub/music/gothic/ as 'the_goth_test'. It can also be
found in Take a Bite 1.0 - jokingly subtitled 'the net.goth
handbook', which is also available at the same site.

Sandman - written by Neil Gaiman and published by
Vertigo. Also various offshoot projects: Books of magic, High
Cost of Living (about his sister, Death) etc.

The Crow:

4 issue mini series published in 1989 by Caliber

3 issue mini series published in 1992 by Tundra

The Crow TPB (Trade Paperback) reprints ALL Crow
stories/art published in 1993 by Kitchen Sink Press ($15.95
US coverprice)

Love and Rockets - (sort of punk/goth) by Los Bros
Hernandez, published by Fantagraphics. This is where the band
name came from by the way.

The Vampire Chronicles - Three different series - one for each
of the first three Anne Rice vampire books, adapted by hacks,
published by Innovation. OK only if you've already read the
books. Anne Rice doesn't like them at all.

Stray Toasters - four issue mini series by Bill Sienkiewicz
(pronounced as Sin-KEV-itch) published by Epic. Inspiration
for a Creaming Jesus song.

Grendel - by Matt Wagner, published by Dark Horse (was
published by Comico). Some stories are fairly Gothic others
are not.

Sandman Mystery Theatre - by Matt Wagner, published by
Vertigo. An old golden age DC character revived. Full of
atmosphere.

Cerebus - by Dave Sim and Gerhard. Not strictly Gothic, but
black and white. Flight and Women have a great Sandman satire.

There is a full list of internation clubs maintained by
digitar (digitar@io.org). Email him for a copy, or FTP
'GothClubs' from the goth archive at
ftp.maths.tcd.ie:/pub/music/gothic. There is also a hypertext
version at
http://www.vamp.org/Gothic/clublist.html.
Please email in any additions you might have to digitar's
list.

Andrew Eldritch chose the phrase as the name of this band from
a Leonard Cohen song of that name. The song may be referring
to prostitutes as 'Sisters of Mercy'. There is also a
religious order who are sometimes known by that name.

The Sisterhood was a one shot band created by Andrew Eldritch
to stop Wayne Hussey using the name when Hussey left the
Sisters of Mercy. By the way, 25000 pounds was not
granted in a court case - it is merely the advance budget that
the Mission didn't get.

Synthetic dyes are best. The 'Ritt' dye rarely works well and
tends to be coloured, though it isnt available in the
UK. There is a japanese semi-natural dye (Ginsa?) which is not
bad if you can get it. As for tips on how to actually dye
clothes with this:

Don't use a Washing machine. Get a big pot (no, not
that one, I said a BIG POT. Put the object in
that you wish to die, and fill it with enough water to cover
the object and then some. Remove the object. This is done to
make sure that when you put the article of clothing back in,
you don't die the stove.

Put the pot on the stove and boil the water. The hotter the
better. Unfortunately it is difficult to get the water much
above 212f (100c). Add the Dye. Approxametly twice what the
package says and stir (no, not with your arm, and don't use
the spoon that you stir spaghetti with either) add the
garment. Boil for a while, turn off the heat and let
cool. When the BIG POT is cool enough, put in
a corner overnight. The next day rinse the garment out with
cold water as well as the pot. put the garment back in the pot
and fill with vinegar. Let set a day or two, and wash in cold
water with about half the amount of laundry soap you normally
use.

Acrylics are best. Clean the jacket with warm soapy water. Use
a 'flexible medium' if possible. If using Liquitex brand you
may get away without. You can varnish with with clear acryclic
coating to protect further.

T-Shirts can be done above but the flexible medium is
essential. This way is better than buying fabric paints.

For the best answer, you should read the newsgroup
alt.books.anne-rice. Anne Rice is alive and well and writes
supernatural romance. Interview With a Vampire is her mort
artistic work but other books are all good readable stuff with
strong themes.

The Vampire Chronicles:

Interview With a Vampire

The Vampire Lestat

Queen of the Damned

The Tale of the Body Thief

She has also written:

The Mummy or Rameses the Damned

The Witching Hour

As well as a trilogy of bondage stories under the name of
A.N. Roquelaire - which are not gothic. Two 'romance' novels as
Anne Rampling, called Exit to Eden and Belinda, as well as a
short story: Master of Rampling Gate.

Another Gothic author. Storm is more Gothic and less
mainstream than Anne Rice. She has a series of books which
have a lot in common with Anne Rice's vampire chronicles. She
is interested in the occult and in very ancient mythology,
biblical connections et cetera. Some of her ideas are very
controversial, often in total contradiction with most well
known academic research. She is published by Headline in the
UK.

There are plenty, including Bram Stoker and
H.P. Lovecraft. Bram Stoker wrote Dracula and Lair of the
White Worm amongst others. He died of syphilis and was quite
mad at the end. H.P. Lovecraft wrote many short stories, most
of which involved the Cthulhu mythos which he invented. He
died after a tragically short career. He had a phobia of cold
and was quite reclusive. He wrote a classic paper on Gothic
Horror which is a must read.

The German Expressionists are quite Gothic and the film
Nosferatu (the B&W version) is considered very
Gothic. The remake: Nosferatu the Vampyre is also Gothic
despite being in colour. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari is
probably the most Gothic film of all.

And of course there are the common ones, "Dracula" (in its
many remakes) and The Hunger staring David Bowie, and
"Interview with a Vampire"

Andrew Eldritch and Carl McCoy are the singers from The
Sisters of Mercy and The Fields of the Nephilim
respectively. They are pillars of the Goth community. Wayne
Hussey was guitarist in the Sisters but he left in a bad
mood. He then failed to get a slice of record company money
allocated to the Sisters despite a court battle. He and
Eldritch are now reconciled personally if not musically.

Half a lager and half a cider. Lager is what americans would
call "beer" and cider is the same sort of thing made from
apples basically. The combination is somewhat lethal. A lot of
pubs will refuse to serve it. Variations: "snakebite black" -
the same drink with a splash of blackcurrant in it, also known
as a "purple nasty" up north and is the cliche goth drink
(also can be prepared as snakebite and black with a pernod and
a vodka in it). "red witch" - a snakebite with pernod and
black in - not to be taken lightly under any
circumstances. "Anaconda" - made with half a pint of
Theakstons Old Peculiar (or another real ale) and a bottle of
Diamond White or 1080 (or other strong dry cider), a dash of
black and two straws. It can also be *real beer* and cider
(i.e. ale) e.g. Theakston's Old Peculier (~5.5%) + Scrumpy
Jack (erm, ~5%ish), a rather entertaining mix

Note: all of the products below should and
will need to be purchased at a beauty supply place, substitute
equivalents as needed

Start with healthy hair. In order to do this I recommend using
good products. ie Nexxuss etc. Seeing we cant all afford that
kind of stuff, the generics usually work well.

If you are dying your hair just like a standard color try
Wella - blue black, Black Cherry, Loreal- Aurelle Cherry Plum,
Clairol- 70R Plum brown. TRY AND AVOID TORRIDS. It is death to
your hair. They look cool but you pay a price in the end. Put
a high intensity conditioner right in the mixture of dye. Use
20 volume developer but not any higher.

"But I want to manic panic my hair! and its already black.. or
another color!" First, bleach your hair. This is a must unless
you are a blond. Products that work include Effasol by loreal
(use developer not water), Torrids Platinum Lightening (its
death but it works. its a high power tint), SpeedLighT by
Wella.

This can take several tries. It took Lady Renee 8 bleaches
over 6 weeks to get my pretty purple hair, often bleaching her
hair 3 times in day for several hours. Leave it in for up to
an hour a process and when the bleach dries it quits working
so mist it lightly with warm water. (It reactivates it)
Condition between each process! Or watch your hair fall out.

For the actual Manic Panic, (you can also use Punky Colors or Krazy Colors):

Apply, Wear gloves, it stains.

For even application use a bottle not plop it on and when
you think your are done. Slick it back and use a toothbrush
to do your roots.